I Dare You To Run
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: Prequel to Family Affair, Matty's friends can't stand Sirius... but can she? Sirius sets his sights on her and they find out that there's more to love than the games they like so much. SB/OC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is a prequel to **_**Family Affair**_**, requested by and dedicated to **_**Forever Siriusly Sirius**_**, my most loyal reader! :D I hope this lives up to all of your expectations, dear!**

** -C**

It had been four long years of Hogwarts and she was about to start the fifth. Matty Clondon waved goodbye to her parents before turning to run back onto the Hogwarts Express, finding an empty compartment and waiting for someone, anyone she was friends with, to poke their head in and come to sit with her.

"This seat taken?" said the teasing voice of one Sirius Black.

She looked up and raised her eyebrows at him.

"Which one?" she quipped back, a bit annoyed that he was bothering her, but then, she had wished for company.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said presumptively, sliding inside and closing the door behind him quickly, taking the seat beside her, the one next to the window, propping his feet up on the seat across from him. "Good summer, Clondon?"

"Who are you running from this time?" she asked, smiling to herself as she looked with curiosity at the compartment door. "Maybe I should invite them in."

Matty made to get up but he grabbed her arm firmly, yanking her closer to him and he glared at her fiercely.

"Don't you dare," he growled.

"So tell me who it is," she countered, rather more boldly than she felt.

He sighed.

"If you must know," he said bitterly, "it's Fabian Prewett. He's still a bit sore about me sleeping with his girlfriend before break."

Matty scoffed.

"As he should be," she said primly, yanking her arm out of his grip as she recalled the massive fight in the common room just before the last breakfast of the year. "That was terrible of you.

"What?" he asked, running his fingers through his black locks almost nervously. "I was so drunk I don't remember a thing. I obviously wasn't thinking straight. She's not even my type! I'm honestly not even convinced it happened. You know she's been in that stupid group of fan girls since... since... well, at least since third year."

That was true, but Matty wasn't going to give up her disgust at him so easily, especially because it was easier to be disgusted at him than dragged down the slippery slope of taking his side on such a controversial matter.

"So how was your summer, Clondon?" he said, flashing her that charming smile of his. "You never did tell me."

"It was fine," Matty said with a shrug.

In truth it had been stressful and entirely too long, but she didn't want to talk about everything she'd had to do about her sisters. Sirius never let up on an opportunity to tease her about them. They were... unconventional. They had a reputation for being crazy, but Matty wasn't ready to slap that harsh diagnosis on them.

The door slid open and a snarling face greeted them.

"Hello, Cissy," Sirius said coldly to his cousin.

Narcissa Black had the Black family gray eyes, just like her cousin, but she was the only one of her family that Matty had ever met with silky blonde hair. Everyone else was dark haired. This was something Matty Clondon found disturbing, coming from a long line of blondes herself, and having very silvery eyes. Matty and Narcissa were self-professed mortal enemies and looked like they could be sisters. Narcissa was a bit more aristocratic, refined, but they had almost the exact same coloring and incredibly similar build.

"Sirius," Narcissa said distastefully, looking over at Matty with her signature sneer of disgust. "I'm just warning you that I have been ordered to watch you this year and report your behavior back to the family. You ought to keep that in mind when you make your... decisions."

She had turned her sneer back to Matty as she iterated her last word as though it were a curse on Matty's very existence.

Sirius had never been particularly close with Matty and hadn't ever let go an opportunity to tease her or her friends, even though it had never been particularly harmful or terrible. But she never would have expected him to do what he was doing in that moment.

He got to his feet quickly, moving between Matty and Narcissa in one smooth movement, a predatory stance as he glared at his cousin.

"Don't you even look at her like that," Sirius snapped. "Don't speak to her like that. She's about six times the witch you'll ever be."

Narcissa's gray eyes flashed as she looked up at her cousin, but she didn't take a step back. She was too proud to do that, even if she was afraid, which Matty would have bet she was. Sirius might not have ever picked on her that Matty was aware of, but everyone knew what he was capable of from watching him duel Snape.

"You really are worse than I thought if you're standing up for that trash," Narcissa drawled.

Matty began digging her nails into the upholstery to resist the urge to claw off Narcissa Black's face.

Sirius surprised her again by whipping out his wand and pointing it square at his cousin.

"You might be family," he said in that same dangerous voice, "and you may be female, but if you say another word I'll disfigure you so badly that no respectable wizard will marry you, no matter how pure your blood is. Are we clear?"

Narcissa finally did back away a few steps, not saying a word, but her eyes still flashing angrily as they looked at Sirius, then at Matty, then back at Sirius. When she was gone, Sirius came back into the compartment, slamming the door behind him and then falling back into the seat beside Matty, who looked up at him with concern and confusion.

"Sirius," she said slowly, softly, "why did you-?"

"Nobody deserves to be spoken to or looked at like that, Clondon," he said shortly. "Nobody."

"And Snape?" she said softly. "What about the way you speak to him?"

He raised his eyebrows, looking over at her with piercing gray eyes. She felt like he was undressing her with those eyes, laying her bare for the world to see, but that was probably her imagination. After all, she was so used to his reputation that even if none of it were true (which she couldn't say for sure), it was the sort of thing she had come to expect from him.

"Do you know the sort of things he says about you?" Sirius whispered. "Do you have any idea the sort of things he goes around _saying_ about you?"

"I know," Matty said softly, looking down at her hands. "He says them to my face, too."

She wasn't going to get emotional in front of Sirius Black of all people. She couldn't even cry about it to Lily, because Lily would never believe such things about Severus Snape.

To her great surprise, though, Sirius didn't belittle her or anything like that. He wrapped an arm around her and whispered, "You should never be treated like that, Clondon. It doesn't matter what I think about you or what you think about me. I know you're a good person at the very least."

As annoying as she found him, Matty knew that Sirius was at heart a good person, or at least, a far better person than the Slytherins he was always at odds with. What she hadn't expected was the kindness he was showing her, the way he was wrapping his arm around her. Were the rumors true? Was he just a womanizer and a show-off?

She'd never known anyone who had ever actually been with him, or at least, no one who was willing to admit it, but now she had to wonder.

Before she realized what she was doing, she jerked away from his hold, moving to the other side of the compartment, just to be safe.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, nay, demanded.

"I'm... sitting here," he said slowly, confused. "I'm taking the train to school like everybody else.

"I mean, why are you sitting with me?" she said. "Surely you have friends you would rather be with. They're not all prefects. I know it's just Remus, he wrote me to say so. I'm waiting for Lily. What are you doing here?"

He just smiled at her thoughtfully.

"You were alone," he said slowly. "I was alone. I... I didn't want to see my friends yet, Clondon. I thought we could be alone together, just for a while. I'll leave when Evans gets here but..."

He looked over at the compartment door and Matty noticed for the first time that he had bruises on the side of his face and a long, just-healing cut down his left arm. Someone was using him as a punching bag or something like it. He wasn't emotionally ready to face his friends, that was what he was saying.

"Sirius, are you okay?" she asked, reaching out without thinking and brushing a bit of hair off a wound, her fingers grazing it gently as she did so. It was difficult to ignore how soft his hair was, the warmth of his skin beneath her fingertips, the strange glint in his gray eyes as he watched her with some expression she couldn't name. She blinked. "What?"

"It's nothing you should worry about," he whispered, his voice sounding strained. "You... I... I don't think I've ever said this before, but you're really... really..."

Whatever she was, she wouldn't know until later, because Mary McDonald and Lily Evans entered the compartment at that moment and Sirius and Matty instantly separated.

"What are you doing in here, Black?" Lily snapped immediately. "Don't you have better things to do than to bother Matty?"

"You're quite right, Evans," Sirius said with a grin and wink. "Just popping in to say hello and wish her a happy school year, but I suppose she's got better things to do, too. I'll leave you to talk about how depraved I am and all the boring things you ladies did this summer. See you at the feast."

Matty opened her mouth to say something to him, anything to say that she wanted to know what he had been about to tell her, but before she could think of any words Sirius had left and she was alone with Lily and Mary, staring at the compartment door as if she could wish him to come back, which was something she never thought she would do.

"Remus said hello, Matty," Lily said happily, sitting down in the seat Sirius had emptied so abruptly, beside Mary, who had already sat. "He said you didn't write very much this summer."

"I wrote!" Matty protested.

"I don't know," Lily said with a shrug. "He seemed to think it wasn't as much as usual. He was all worried about you. I told him that if there was anything wrong I didn't know anything about it."

The strange thing was, there had been something that summer that had thrown her off from usual.

Someone, in the middle of the summer, had sent her a secret admirer letter, and while she couldn't tell who it was, they knew things about her that only the Marauders knew, so she had been a bit stiffer than usual, perhaps, in the letters she had written to Remus, trying to decide if it was him or not as she wrote.

"So what was Black doing here?" Mary said with a grin. "Is he your secret admirer do you think?"

"I hope not," Matty groaned. "I still don't know who it is."

"Well you do realize it's narrowed down to two people," Lily said evenly. "After all, Peter's not clever enough to write you such riddles and Potter... Potter has been writing me love letters all summer as fodder for my fireplace."

Mary giggled. Even Matty cracked a smile.

Everyone found James Potter's obsession with Lily entertaining except for Lily. She scowled at them for their reactions and they eventually were able to calm themselves of their amusement to talk about Matty again.

"So Remus or Sirius," Mary said thoughtfully. "Most girls would want Sirius."

"Matty's not most girls," Lily pointed out bossily.

Matty, though, wasn't so sure.

Given the pick of all the boys in the wizarding world she might not pick Sirius Black, but when it came down to Remus and Sirius... Well it was nearly impossible to see Remus as anything other than a friend. They'd kissed once at a party and Matty had never had a kiss with less spark.

It wasn't that she had any particular draw to Sirius, but she had a feeling that any kiss from him would be packed with spark. She'd heard the stories, people saying that just a brush of his lips could make a girl's knees go weak, that his hands alone could make a girl come so hard they couldn't see straight for a whole minute. And the stories about his cock... well, Matty could feel herself blush just thinking about them.

To say she hadn't thought fondly that it might be Sirius writing to her would be a lie.

But to say that she truly wanted to be with Sirius Black would be utterly absurd. She still had a bit of sense, thank-you-very-much.

"If it were Remus would you date him?" Mary said excitedly. "I'm seen him looking at you sometimes."

"Don't be ridiculous, Mary," Matty scoffed. "Remus doesn't look at me any differently from anyone else. We're friends. And no, I don't think I would."

That was largely the reason behind her tension when she wrote Remus letters over the holiday. She didn't think she had the heart to tell him that she didn't want to date him at all. After all, he was so nice and he hardly ever made friends outside of the Marauders and her own little group of friends that he studied with. He was too shy and he was sick so often.

"What if it's Sirius?" Mary asked, wiggling her eyebrows up and down suggestively.

Matty could feel the heat pooling in her cheeks.

Of course she wouldn't date him. Sirius Black probably wouldn't even be interested in dating, just want a quick shag or two, but she couldn't help but wonder what his breath would feel like on her neck and what path his hands would follow along her skin as he explored her.

"Don't be ridiculous, Mary," Lily snorted, but before they had a chance to follow that conversation further there was a knock on the compartment door.

"Enter," Lily said stiffly, primly.

Matty almost smiled at how Lily thought she was so important, a Gryffindor prefect, as if there hadn't been thousands before her.

The door slid open and Remus and Sirius were standing there, Remus looking sheepish, Sirius grinning madly.

"We need to ask you a terribly important favor," Remus said in his most diplomatic voice, his eyes darting over to Matty for a moment.

"What is it?" Lily asked warily, glancing at Sirius with momentary disdain before turning sharply back to Remus.

"We need to borrow Matty for a moment," Remus said slowly. "I promise we'll return her back in one piece. Other than that, since Sirius and James are involved, I can't really make further promises."

"That's hardly a promise of much," Matty said firmly. "Am I supposed to just follow you without any indication of why or what you're going to do to me?"

"Pretty much," Sirius said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her up.

Matty tried not to gasp as she felt his hand close around her wrist, felt the way her stomach turned excitedly, the way her heart sped up as she found herself chest-to-chest with him. She blinked up at his gray eyes which darkened as their eyes met, but she allowed Remus to lead her off down the corridor of the train with only a wave backward at her friends as she was whisked away to the compartment that housed the Marauders, the greatest troublemakers Hogwarts had ever seen.

"All right," James said with a sigh, "it has come to our attention that you received a letter over the holiday, something about a secret admirer and we want to set the record straight."

"Please don't," Matty whispered, back to their compartment door as they all looked up at her. "Please, I'm perfectly happy not knowing. I'm even happier pretending it never happened. Can we all just pretend-"

"Matty," Remus said gently, and her heart began to race.

It was him. He'd sent the letter. She didn't want to know. She didn't want him to say those words.

"I'm not listening to this," she said firmly, slipping out of the door and rushing away toward her own compartment, desperate to hide.

Knowing meant she had to do something about it.

She was caught by surprise, though, when someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her into an empty compartment, locking it behind him.

"Sirius," she said, glaring at him. "I don't want to talk about-"

"Just thought you should know," he said, talking right over her, grabbing her wrists and pressing her to the door of the compartment with his body, "that you don't get a say in whether or not you know who sent it to you."

"Please," she whispered pleadingly. "Please don't tell me."

He smirked at her.

"All right then," he said slyly. "I won't say a word."

She looked up at him, breathing heavily, trying to comprehend what he had just said to her, but as the words finally began to sink in he pressed his lips firmly to hers, knocking the air right out of her and making her brain absolutely pointless as he just kissed her, too stunned to kiss him back or push him away or do anything at all but stand there. Even that was more on his power than her own.

And then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, he pulled away, winked at her, and watched her sink to a nearby seat as he left her alone in the compartment.

Sirius Black was her secret admirer and suddenly Matty's life felt a lot more complicated.


	2. A Heated Beginning

It had taken a week for Sirius Black to even look at her after the kiss on the train, and that was probably a good thing, because Matty would have blushed for sure and then everyone would have known.

They would have known that Sirius was playing with her, that he was winning, that she would lay awake at night replaying the kiss in her mind and memory, that she'd even had a dream where the kiss had turned into much, much more.

When Sirius finally did look at her it was because they had been assigned as partners in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Professor, I don't think that's a good idea," Sirius had said. "Everybody knows Clondon can't duel. I'll not get any proper practice if I'm to keep from putting her in the hospital wing every week."

The professor, however, was a new one, just like every year, and Matty still couldn't even recall what his name was yet, but Sirius's rude but thoughtful warning went entirely unheeded and Sirius and Matty were stuck trying to duel each other for at least until the professor got the idea that they were the absolute worst pairing in the class.

"Sorry," he said, walking quickly to keep up with her as she made her way to the hospital wing instead of lunch for the third week in a row. "I even held up, thinking you'd see what I was doing, but the spell was stronger than I thought."

"It's my fault," Matty said stubbornly, refusing to look at him. "I'm the one who's useless at dueling. What sort of help am I going to be in a war if I can't even help myself in a classroom when someone's not even trying to hurt me much less kill me?"

"Don't say that," he said, his tone hard as steel. "Nobody is going to hurt you."

"You don't know that," Matty pointed out evenly.

"I..." Sirius growled, looking at her fiercely, stopping her as she cradled her bloody arm. "Nobody is going to hurt you, Matty. I won't... I..."

Before she realized what was happening he was pressing his lips to hers again, more gently than on the train but just as surprising. Matty thought briefly about pulling away but then she found herself growing dizzy and realized it had nothing to do with the blood loss from her arm.

She was getting lost in the kiss and she hardly noticed that it was chaste and closed-mouthed even, his fingertips brushing her cheek with all of the gentleness of a mother washing the tears off her child's skin. Her breath caught at the warmth of his touch and then she had a thought about whether he had done this same sort of kiss with other girls he'd been with, or if he'd saved it just for her.

And that thought was all she needed to pull out of the kiss. She wouldn't be another one of his whores.

He looked down at her with a question in his gray eyes.

"My arm," she said by way of explanation, hoping that she wouldn't ever have to lie to him and say that she hadn't liked or wanted that kiss, because there was little she wanted more than to have him lean down and press his lips to hers again regardless of the consequences.

Unfortunately, with all of the things Sirius Black was, he also happened to be a Gryffindor and so he did have a bit of chivalry in him so he nodded and began leading her hurriedly to the hospital wing.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Matty said, trying to put a bit of distance between herself and Sirius. "You don't need to take me to the hospital wing. I know where it is. I can get there myself."

"You could also pass out from blood loss and end up a lot worse for the wear," Sirius said stubbornly. "I'm going to walk you there and make sure that doesn't happen like the professor told me and you're going to swallow your pride and let me."

She held herself a bit stiffer.

Pride! Who did he think he was, lecturing her about pride?

Instead of dignifying his insults with a response, however, she sniffed and continued the walk in silence, ignoring the way he would look at her occasionally as they turned a corner, like he had half a mind to push her against the wall and snog her instead of taking the hospital wing after all.

Or was that her imagination misinterpreting the looks?

She certainly couldn't say for sure because she wasn't actually looking at him, just out of the corner of her eye, which was admittedly not the best way to judge expressions. Instead she just looked straight ahead, wondering if it had ever taken two people so long to walk from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to the infirmary.

Matty nearly sighed of relief when they finally reached the hospital wing and were greeted by the familiar face of Poppy Pomfrey, the matron, who clicked her tongue disapprovingly at the very sight of them.

To say that they had sent each other to her frequently throughout their years at Hogwarts would have been a vast understatement. There hadn't been a single month that had passed without one or the other of them visiting her because of something the other had done, often both at once, and very few weeks passed differently than such.

"Just the one today?" she said, looking at Matty's arm shrewdly. "Well, then, off with you Black. If you don't hurry you'll miss lunch. I assure you she's quite all right with me."

Sirius didn't look pleased about being made to leave Matty before she was healed, but he did so. It was a bit silly because the healing had taken all of two minutes and then another minute of cleaning the blood off of her and mending her robes, and then Matty was sent on her way as well.

What Matty had been fairly convinced wasn't a big deal was apparently a far bigger deal to everybody else in the world.

"I could throttle that arrogant toerag," Lily said furiously, and for the first time all year the words were not directed at James Potter.

"Lily, it's really not that big of a deal," Matty said with a shrug. "My arm's fine and it's not like he was trying to hurt me. Actually, he'd tried not to hurt me and failed at it because he's just far too powerful to be my dueling partner."

"That's beside the point," Lily snapped. "The very nerve of him, walking you to the hospital wing like that! People might think-"

"That Sirius didn't want her to pass out on her way there because her arm was squirting blood like it was going out of style?" said their roommate, Marie Wellington-Sinclair dryly. "Yes, Lily, I suppose that really is what everybody would think."

They didn't dislike Marie, exactly, but she didn't vibe with their trio very well. She was a nice enough girl but she just didn't share their view of Sirius and James. In fact, she'd been James's first kiss back in second year Christmas holiday when they were caught under the mistletoe together, and (if the rumors could be trusted at all) she had been Sirius Black's first shag.

That made her sort of her own kind of legend at Hogwarts, and while Matty didn't really have a problem with her, she didn't think she wanted Marie Wellington-Sinclair involved in any of her interactions with the Marauders, much less Sirius Black.

"Can we just drop it?" Matty snapped. "There are more interesting and important things to talk about than Sirius bloody Black and my arm, which is, as I would like to point out, healed!"

"Good idea," Mary said, coming to Matty's rescue. "I think that we should talk about the way James Potter was ogling Lily's leg in Charms class."

"I beg your pardon!" Lily spluttered. "What in the name of Merlin are you talking about?"

"Oh, I had nearly forgotten that!" Matty giggled.

Lily had been so excited to give the answer that she happened to know (despite the fact that nobody else knew it) she had been a bit jerky about putting her hand in the air and had disrupted her robes enough that they had dropped off one of her legs and displayed her skin bare between her socks and her skirt.

The fact that Lily had no idea it had happened made it even more entertaining.

Someone who had noticed, however, was James Potter, and he actually couldn't concentrate on anything else for the rest of class. Matty had a sneaking suspicion that he had been drooling as well, his mouth had hung open unceremoniously for so long, but she had been too far away to know for sure.

The girls talked and giggled and teased each other the rest of the night, including Marie, and it completely escaped Matty that she went all night without thinking of Sirius's lips for the first time since the train ride.

The following morning, however, she was not so lucky.

After morning Quidditch practice James had the team come over and sit with her, where she had been minding her own business, and so the Marauders naturally joined him. And Matty was all alone while her friends slept in as they liked to do on the weekends.

It was just her luck, being suck next to Sirius Black.

His leg was pressed right up against hers and she knew in that moment that it wasn't an accident. He was trying to drive her crazy, to make her feel so good that she fell right into his bed.

Well, if he wanted to play games that was just fine. Matty Clondon was quite good at playing games, especially good at getting what she wanted, and very accomplished and winning.

She let him think he was teasing her for a while, and in reality he was doing a very good job of it, but she would never let her stubborn pride admit that to even herself. Once he had gotten himself into a rhythm, Matty moved her hand to his leg, running her nails up it with enough pressure that she could be sure that he felt it through his trousers. His eyes widened so slightly that only a careful observer could be sure that it had happened at all. That was all she needed to strike.

Matty moved her hand to cup Sirius's erection mercilessly. The fact that he was already so hard made her a bit suspicious as to what he had been thinking about since he sat down, but she said nothing and tried to stay focused as his whole body stiffened. It was very hard not to smirk as she ran her hand along the outside of his trousers, teasing his throbbing cock that she could feel hardening underneath. His breathing was becoming ragged and she found herself wanting to make him come, wanting to know what it felt like to do that to Sirius Black, and that was how she knew she'd gone too far, got too caught up.

And before she could find out what that felt like she pulled away her hand, used that same hand to brush her hair out of her eyes and stood.

"I'd better get back and wake up those sleepy roommates of mine," she said brightly. "Good to see you all. Potter, I'll get you those notes you were asking me for on Muggle relationship practices, but it's not going to help you with Lily."

Matty should have probably expected that more than just Sirius Black's eyes would follow her as she left the Great Hall, but she really hadn't counted on him following her all the way to the third floor before pulling her into an abandoned classroom.

"You dirty little minx," he said in a low, dangerous voice that she had come to associate with Sirius Black being about to do something that would make even the other Marauders a little bit frightened of him, if only for a moment. She'd heard it a few times before when she'd seen him dueling Slytherins, but never whispered into her ear in a way that made her wet. "What was that for?"

"You want to play, don't you?" she whispered back, silver eyes flashing at him as he grabbed her waist and pulled her back to his front sharply so she could feel his erection digging into her lower back. It was exceedingly difficult to ignore the way her heart was pounding in her throat as his fingers traced up her torso.

"Why, are you interested?" he said teasingly. "Considered my words on the train?"

Oh, had she.

"What I can't figure out, Sirius Black, is why you're interested," she said evasively. She was not going to lie, but she certainly wasn't going to admit to him that she actually wanted him.

He snorted.

"Have you looked in the mirror lately, Clondon?" he whispered in her ear. "You're... beautiful."

She blinked, looking across the room at the window where the light was coming in.

Nobody had ever called her beautiful. Her father barely looked at her, so consumed with his work, and her mother was always too busy appeasing her high-maintenance older sisters. She'd dated, and she would hear that she was hot or pretty or sexy, but beautiful?

But Sirius Black was charming, she knew that. Sirius knew what to say, how to say it, and just how to make a girl feel special. It was probably part of his training as a child for being head of the Black family.

She stepped out of his hold, moving to the window sill and sitting on it daintily, crossing her legs and looking at him with her head cocked slightly, almost as if in a challenge.

"I'm not falling for your sweet words, Black," she said softly, and he raised his eyebrows. "I'm not stupid like the other girls you seduce."

"You're certainly not stupid," he said with a small nod. "You're bright, you're beautiful, you're a bit of a spitfire... And I'm not asking you to just fall into my bed, although I wouldn't object if you did." Matty snorted. "The point is," he continued with a grin, "I'm not just interested in you in my bed. I want you, Matty. I'm not playing a game."

Matty raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

Sirius Black didn't want relationships, he wanted games, and she wasn't going to fall for that one.

"You want me?" Matty whispered as he drew close to her again, his forehead nearly touching hers as his eyes watched her lips form the words.

"Yes," he whispered, moving his face a bit closer.

"Well then," she said with a smirk, "you'll have to prove it."

And before he could kiss her again and make her forget what she was trying to do, she got to her feet and left Sirius standing alone by the window.

Her heart was racing as she walked back toward Gryffindor Tower.

"Matty?"

She paused and turned to find Remus walking after her.

"Hey," she said, "just heading up to the common room."

"I thought you'd be there by now," he said, confused.

Matty looked down at her feet as she walked.

"I got detained temporarily. Not a big deal. Where are you headed?"

"The common room, I guess," Remus said with a shrug. "Have you seen Sirius? I thought he came this way."

"No, don't think so," Matty lied easily. "C'mon, I've got to wake up the girls before they miss food altogether."

Remus nodded, walking with her for a bit before he said, "I'm sorry about the letter thing. I mean, we all are. I know you don't want to talk about it, but I thought I ought to apologize on behalf of the Marauders."

"You're always doing that, aren't you?" Matty laughed bitterly. "You're always trying to clean up for the others and apologize for their behavior. Why do you bother?"

He shook his head and smiled a little.

"They're really good guys at heart you know," Remus assured her. "I know that you and Lily never really got on with them, especially Sirius, but he's a great guy and a really good friend."

"The way he treats girls," Matty began, forcing as much disdain as she could muster into her voice, but Remus cut her off.

"Look, a lot of that is just rumor, and I would know. He's even been attacked by fan girls, so some of it wasn't even consensual, if you know what I mean. And when he has dated girls... Well, he never does anything they don't ask for first. He's surprisingly gentlemanly, Matty. You ought to know that most of reputations are talk because people our age are stupid."

She pursed her lips but didn't respond.

She had been counting on Remus to talk Sirius down, but it was a foolish hope. Remus might like her, she didn't know for sure, but Sirius was a Marauder, one of his best friends. For all she knew they'd all become blood brothers or done some other such ritual to bond them for life. They would not speak against each other unless it was necessary.

"Do you want to work on my defensive spells next weekend?" she said, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. "If I get made fun of one more time I think I'm going to explode."

"I don't know," Remus said slowly. "We were going to... Well, I'll squeeze in some time for you. It's O.W.L. year, after all."

"Exactly," Matty said, grinning broadly.

She would be able to get Lily and Remus help her all year long. She had the exams at the end of the year to keep them as her own personal study team.

Sirius Black would be dealt with later.


	3. On A Clear Night Everything's More Clear

Sirius hadn't said anything to her in a week and although Matty refused to admit any such thing to herself or anyone else, it was driving her crazy.

His eyes still burned with heat every time they met hers, and she caught him looking her almost regularly in classes. She wasn't sure what was more frustrating, the fact that he never looked away first or the fact that she was looking at him just to see if he was looking at her. When had she become so desperate to be looked at?

But that was one of those things about Sirius Black, she supposed. He had this way of looking at someone that made them feel utterly important, and then with the very next gesture he could make them feel like absolutely nothing. It was part of that pureblood aristocracy thing that he had down to an art. That, and part of being in the Hogwarts elite, being a Marauder. More specifically, being the more attractive half of Potter and Black.

No. He was not attractive. Matty needed to stop thinking of him in that way.

All right, so maybe he was attractive. Maybe she could give him that much. It didn't mean she had to want him to kiss her and press her against a wall and have his way with her.

It didn't mean that at all.

She sat down at breakfast with Mary and Lily, pulling a plate of kippers toward her. Matty tried not to shiver as she sensed him entering the Great Hall. She didn't look up as she heard the Marauders drawing near.

"Evans!" called James, and Matty smirked a little as Lily tensed beside her and Mary faked a cough to cover her snickering. "Are you coming out to cheer us on at the match today?"

Matty could feel Sirius's eyes burning as they trained on her, but she wasn't going to look up. She wasn't. She...

She looked up and silver eyes met grey. Did her heart skip a beat? She certainly couldn't seem to find her breath.

Was it even healthy to have such an intense gaze? Wasn't that reserved for the dying and fevered?

And then she thought of the ridiculous adage about love as a fever and she wondered if his skin would be hot to the touch and how much it would take to make him drenched in sweat and...

"Oh, I'll be there, Potter, but for Gryffindor, not for you."

Matty tore her eyes from Sirius and looked over at Remus, who was obviously torn between being annoyed with James and amused at the situation, as everyone else was.

"I've got a deal for you, Evans," James said in a way that he probably thought made him seem suave, but Mary collapsed in a fresh wave of cough-giggles. He ignored her. "I score ten goals and you give me a little kiss."

"Not on your life," Lily said flatly.

"Think of the points we'll win for Gryffindor, Evans," James said in a low voice that made him sound like he had a head cold. "That should turn you on."

At this point, Mary spluttered her pumpkin juice all over poor Peter Pettigrew, who had really just been standing there innocently, and Matty's eyebrows raised as she looked over at Lily, who honestly looked ready to jam her fork into James's skull.

"I think you boys should leave," Matty said as smoothly as possible, which was really quite a difficult task, considering the fact that she wanted to die laughing that very moment.

It really wouldn't have been such a bad way to go.

"You'll come around, Evans," James said with a smirk.

The others had started to walk away when Sirius leaned on the table, putting his right hand just beside Matty's plate as he turned his face to Mary and said, "Be a bit more careful about where you spray, dear."

Then he was gone, but Matty saw that he'd left a scrap of parchment on her napkin. She turned her head slightly to look at him just as Lily began her tirade about the no-good Marauders and how she couldn't understand how Remus could stand those toerags.

Matty carefully scooped her napkin up around the note and moved it surreptitiously to her lap, then to her pocket, making a mental note to look at it when Mary and Lily weren't around and fighting the urge to look over at the Marauders. She needed to eat breakfast, especially because her stomach was getting that tossing feeling that was so familiar when she was excited about something, and while Quidditch didn't typically make Matty excited she had a feeling that today might be a particularly interesting match.

After all, James was playing for the kiss he thought he was going to get from Lily, and Sirius was commentator. It didn't take a genius to guess what his note might say.

"What do you think?" Mary asked with a smile. Matty blinked.

"Erm, sorry, I wasn't listening," Matty admitted sheepishly as Lily began to rant and rave about James all over again, Matty tuning her out again, this time sparing a glare for Mary before letting her gaze move over to Sirius, who was watching her from down the table a ways, spoon in his mouth for no apparently reason, just watching her with those usual burning eyes. She could feel her heart begin to race as he winked at her.

She looked quickly away, but it was too late.

At this point Matty was willing to admit that she had a crush on Sirius Black, but that did _not_ mean anything was going to happen. She wasn't going to succumb to his charms the way all those other girls did. Matty didn't want to be any more of a pity case than she already was with her family's health issues. She didn't need to be the latest Hogwarts rumor, the latest girl to have her heart broken by Sirius Black.

When it was time, Matty walked down to the Quidditch pitch with Lily and Mary, sitting in the Gryffindor stands and ignoring the Slytherins and their taunts as they passed them.

The only thing that made the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry bearable, Matty had always said, was the fact that it was more Gryffindor-Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw/Slytherin rivalry. Gryffindor just happened to be the one house bold enough to stand up to the Slytherins, so they got the worst of it.

Not to mention the Marauders. They almost walked around asking for duels with the Slytherins. Matty just wished it would tone down because it made it hard to get around the school sometimes.

Lily and Mary had taken up a conversation with a fourth year girl Matty had never taken the time to get to know, so Matty fished around in the napkin in her pocket for the note from Sirius. Once she found it she pulled it out and read it.

_If I go the whole time without making McGonagall mad, take is as my promise of gentlemanly conduct and meet me in the Astronomy Tower at midnight._

_ -S_

She very nearly snorted. Gentlemanly conduct indeed.

Still the very promise was surprising to Matty. There was not a single game where Sirius wasn't chastised by Professor McGonagall on a regular basis. In fact, she'd heard him say many times that it was the best part of the job. The fact that he was even considering behaving himself felt too strange.

But then, Sirius Black could never resist a challenge, and Matty supposed that probably included challenges set by himself.

"Are you all right?" Mary asked. Matty jumped slightly and nodded, sticking the parchment back in her pocket.

"Yeah, just found a scrap of parchment in my pocket and was trying to remember what it was about," Matty lied easily.

"What was it?" Mary asked shrewdly.

"Oh, a reminder to study for exams last year," Matty lied with a snort. "Anyway, what do you reckon will happen with the game today?"

"Hopefully," Lily growled, "Gryffindor wins and Potter only gets nine goals."

Matty and Mary began to giggle in spite of Lily's furious and hurt expression. It wasn't that they didn't sympathize with how ridiculous James was about pursuing her, but they knew that it didn't bother her as much as she was carrying on, and so they didn't really act sympathetic.

Before they had a chance to pretend to apologize or smooth the waters, Sirius Black's voice came over the loudspeaker and Matty held her breath. She'd always liked to listen to him do the announcements, mostly because it was entertaining, but also because she loved the smooth, sensual quality of his voice magnified like he was right in her ear.

And then she thought about how it felt for him to be holding her body close against him, his voice smooth and sensual in her ear as he told her that he wanted her. She nearly shivered, but Mary would be very suspicious if she did, so she took a deep breath and looked down at the field as Sirius went on about the various players.

The game began after James shook the hand of Avery, the Slytherin captain. The players took the air and the Snitch was released and there was tension and cheering in the air. Matty listened carefully for Sirius to say something out of line, but it didn't seem as though anything was coming. She kept holding her breath.

"And Potter scores!"

Lily groaned.

"Goal by Potter!"

Five goals later Lily was actually squirming in her seat, and Matty knew how she felt. The agony of wondering whether Sirius could actually keep this up for the whole game was terrible.

It never occurred to Matty that neither she nor Lily had actually agreed to anything at all, so it was a bit ridiculous of them to be so nervous, but perhaps a part of each of them wanted to know what it would be like to be forced to comply with the challenges presented to them.

Ten goals.

Sirius kept on politely and maturely commentating and Matty saw James signal the Seeker.

Then it hit her.

James had arranged it with his team for them not to end the game until he'd gotten at least ten goals and they were ahead. AND Gryffindor was so good that he could actually get away with that. She smiled at his deviousness as the Snitch was caught moments later and Matty realized that Sirius had kept his part of the deal she'd never gotten a chance to actually bargain on. McGonagall didn't chastise him once.

She followed Mary and a raging Lily back to the castle feeling numb and confused. There would be an after party. Maybe if she got drunk she could blame whatever ensued on the firewhiskey.

But that wouldn't happen and Matty knew it as the words of the note played over in her head as she reached the common room and found the party already in full swing.

The Marauders were always prepared.

Gentlemanly conduct.

She watched as James stole a kiss from Lily, who looked both appalled and flustered. For a split second Matty thought Lily might kiss him back, but it passed quickly and she slapped him hard across the face and stormed up to their bedroom. Matty chuckled as James walked away with a foolish grin and a Lily-handprint plastered on his face.

It was hard to focus on the party, but Matty tried really hard not to think about the time, even as other students were filing out. She wasn't sure when or why Sirius disappeared off to, but when it was close to the time she would have to be leaving in order to make it to the Astronomy Tower by midnight, he was nowhere to be seen in the common room. After a moment she made up her mind and snuck out of the portrait hole while no one was looking.

Matty was just asking herself why she had bothered to see him at all when she reached the top of the tower and saw Sirius sitting on a ledge where book bags were stored during classes, looking out over the grounds. She looked at him for a moment, wanting to turn and go back to the common room, but also wanting to know what he had to say so she just stood there, teetering back and forth on her decision.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," Sirius whispered, not turning to look at her. Matty jumped slightly at his verbal acknowledgement. "I hoped you would. I held up my end of the deal, with great difficulty of course. But you're worth it."

Matty frowned a little, looking down at the side of his head and wondering what was going on in there.

"I want you to hear what I have to say," he said softly, turning to look at her finally, gray eyes glistening in the moonlight. "You don't have to do anything. You don't even have to believe me, but I really want you to at least listen. Can you do that?"

She didn't know what else to do, so she nodded, standing there, looking down at him. After a long pause Sirius stood and began to pace the stone floor to the railing and back, always stopping for a few moments in front of her, looking at her. After about five times up and down, he spoke.

"I've been with a girl or two," Sirius said as he paced. "It's no secret. It's honestly a bit of a ridiculous out-of-control rumor mill all its own. But to be honest, I'd never really looked at a girl and felt I'd met my match, or even my equal. But at the end of last year I... I started looking at you and seeing someone who could be... my match. I thought about you all summer. When... when I started having a hard time dealing with my family, I would think about your smile and the way your eyes shined in the sun and... and what it would be like to hold you. And I know that there's no reason for you to even want anything to do with me but... but when I kissed you all I wanted to do was kiss you forever and forget about everything else in the world. All I'm asking for is to be considered."

Matty didn't know what to say, just staring at him for a moment as he stood before her, his eyes burning with an intensity she thought could melt the entire building around them if it weren't focused so heavily on her. There wasn't any thinking or considering at all. There was nothing at all she could do except to reach out her hand and touch his cheek. He froze for a moment at her touch as if he was trying to decide what was happening. How long between the touch and the kiss she couldn't say, but the kiss was spectacular.

She forgot to breathe as Sirius pushed her against the wall, pressing his body against hers so that she was vaguely aware of his erection digging into her stomach as she tangled up her fingers in his hair, feeling his lips working hers apart as her mouth let his tongue in and he explored her like a starving man. When he moaned into her mouth she shivered slightly, pushing herself against him so that she could be closer, always closer to him.

When they finally parted they were both panting.

"I'll take that as a positive sign," he whispered, smiling weakly and pressing his lips to her jaw. Matty threw her head back onto the stone wall and enjoyed the fire that followed the touch of his lips.

"I guess you probably should," she sighed. "This doesn't mean much, though."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I need time to think."

He paused and she nearly whined at him for stopping, but then he pulled away altogether and looked down at her, eyes sad.

"What's there to think about?" he whispered. "I'm crazy about you, Matty. I need you. And judging from that kiss, you need me too. What is there to think about?"

It was a good question and Matty was having a very hard time thinking of anything, much less the answer. Instead, she pressed her lips to his again, tasting his breath, feeling his hands holding her tight against him as she wrapped her arms around his neck, surrendering to the sensations taking over.

After several long, hungry kisses, Sirius pulled away, his eyes very reluctant. Matty looked up at him, confused and a bit hurt, but the hunger was still there on his face.

"As much as I want to stay up here all night," he whispered, "and relish in every bit of you that you'd be willing to give, if we stay up here too long we're bound to get caught. Or get too caught up and stay here all night. And neither of those would be good things in the end. Come on."

Even though Matty hadn't been sure she even wanted to meet him that night, she found herself bitter about how short it had been the entire walk back. She wanted to push him against one of the corridor walls and taste his lips again, feel his hands on her skin, not just through the surprisingly thick robes they both wore.

They parted in the common room with one last kiss and Matty could feel the tension between their lips as they hung there, both wondering if they could just make it last a little longer.

But it was over far too soon and as Matty went up the stairs to bed she wondered if she'd ever had a chance, if it was somehow her destiny to be a fool for Sirius Black like all the rest.

Then again, she thought as she fell back into bed, she wasn't anything like the others. Sirius Black was a fool for her, too, it would seem.

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to **_**Forever Siriusly Sirius**_**, who poked and prodded and chatted me through this chapter, as she so regularly does. :D Even though it wasn't top of my priorities list, she went out of her way to continue the chats that made it priority. Thank her. She's wonderful.**

** -C**


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